A HIGHLAND NEMESIS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1164, 22 June 1894, Page 9

A HIGHLAND NEMESIS.

A great barrier of hills shuts off the lands j of Glenorchna from the North of Scotland. Towns and villages lie on ono side; beyond, a wilder region slopes down to the Atlantic, a great expanse of moor and forest, peopled sparsely, no houses but the laird's castle and one or two crofter's cottages. A broad, busy river traverses the whole, spreading out here and there into open lochs, and erupting itself at last into the sea. The sea is the chief highway and means of approach to Glcnorchna. Steamers come from the southward with letters, papers, passengers, parcels, stock, and there is little communication across the :ugged mountain ridge, save by steep and stony sheep-paths, or the giddy tracks made by red deer or wild goats. The chief, Glcnorchna, as he was always styled, stood in his garden at the back of the castle, which faced the hills. The front was on the boulder-strewn beach, built thus for safety and facility of defence when marauding caterans came to harry and destroy. He was a stout-built man, in bonnet and kilt of the hunting tartan of his clan. As he stood there talking to his keeper, Kenneth, who was bailiff, stalker, and general factotum, now and then he swept the hill side with the telescope he invariably carried. He liked to watch every movement of the deer, to note the numbers of his flocks, the signs of every beast afoot, e*very bird on the wing. " Halloa 1 What's yon chap coming down by Corrie na Goich? Look, Kenneth, Out with your glass, man, quick 1 D'ye see him ? " Ay, Glenorchna, I canna fail to see him. But what for he comes that way, or who he may be, is more than my mither's son can say." "It will be some pedlar body crossing from Strathbegan. He carries some sort of pack or box on his back," went on the chief, still covering the strange wayfarer with his telescope. " Nae doot. Anyway, we'll know for certain before nicht, for he'll be in the clachan in. an hour or less, and we can ask him what brought him by that crooked road. Aiblins he don't fall in with the McMurdocks. Their camp lies at the bottom of the Corrie, hard by the shore." 11 The McMurdocks 1 " cried Glenorchna. "Have those villains turned up again? I thought we were well rid of them. The last I heard of them was that their king, as thoy called him, was in gaol, and the gang broken up." '•lt's na that, Glenorchna. You can see for yourself if jou follow the shore as far as where the Corrie na Goich burn runs into the sea. Their boat, which brings them from Lake Guppy, is drawn up on the beach, and they've got their bits of tents, of rags and skins ot beasties, pitched just before Lord Alick's Cave." 11 The poaching villains ! If they touch fur or feather of mine, I'll have the law of them," cried the chief, angrily. " Keep an eye on them, Kenneth, and tell the policeman if you see him—not that he has been this way for a month or more." " Poaching's not the blackest of their deeds, for a' that, Glenorchna," said the keeper, darkly. " Nonsense. You mean tho.se tales about body-snatching, I suppose ? I don't believe a word of it. Poachers they are, or would be ; and I call that the worst kind of thicv--1 ino- almost. But to steal corpses ! There's nothing of that sort nowadays." " Deed, Glenorchna, there's dark doings still. Wasn't it only last spring at Loch Fallock there was a man died, just when the McMurdocks were squatting hard by, and the relatives had to watch by the grave five nights, with guns ? Three times strange folk —who but the McMurdocks?-came to the kirkyard and would have carried off the corpse. But the watchers drove them away. And it is said that when they canna get bodies underground, they make corpses of live folk above ground, whatever." « Do you mean that thoy commit murder when they get a chance ? " "That's just what I do mean, Glenorchna ; and it's sorry I d be, or any of us, to go by their tents alone after dark. They're just born Weevils, and they fear neither God nor But there was something they feared with wild, overmastering terror something strange, supernatural—the righteous reward possibly of their own evil deeds The wayfarer who had crossed the mountains by the little-travelled path did not reach the village, or hamlet, of Glenorchna that night. Inquiries were made by the chief himself, who was a true Highlander, of a most curious, inquisitive disposition. The isolation in which he lived no doubt strengthened this sHe of his character, ;»nd , Glenorchna insisted upon knowing every- ' thing about everyboly, everything that went t on within his " policy." That a stranger whom he had himself seen with his own°cyes, through his telescope, should visit his lands without giving a fall account of' himself was intolerable, and the chief was disposed to raise a hue and cry for him, until Kenneth pacified him by suggesting that the man on the hill was one of the McMurdock's gang, and had therefore not come beyond their camp. A new tarn was, however, given to Qlenorchna's eager mind by the extraordinary rumour that soon spread like wildfiie through the estate. The McMurdocks had seen the devil—the Evil One—Satan himself—fully equipped with horns, and hoofs, and tail, just as he is represented in the engravings of the old family Bibles treasured in the far north. He had been seen in Lord Alick's Cave, a gruesome den with a wild record in the past. Rebels, pirates, smugglers, had used it, and it had been the scene of more than one murder and treacherous outrage. The clan Glenorchna gave it a wide berth, and it was no small reason for the dislike the McMardocks inspired, that thoy chose so often to squat in its vicinity. But now thoy were paid off for their temerity. The devil had taken possession of the cave. He had fallen foul of several of the gang. Hamesh McMurdock, who told "the merchant," or village shopkeeper, the story, said he had been chased round the cave by the

fiend, who screamed with fury and scampered about, run up the steep rocky walls of tho cavern and gibbered at him from above ; then all at once dropped on to his shoulders, stuck his claws into his face, and tore and mauled him terribly. Since that not a soul of them dared enter the cave. The chief, to whom the tale was at once reported, laughed it to scorn. " Devil! It's one of themselves, then. Or the Old Gentleman has come after one of them. He'll have them all some day. But I don't believe a word of it. There's something behind." " Deed, Glenorchna," protested the keeper, who was his informant, u 1 wadna be so peart. They're uncanny bodies, and it's but natural that bogles and the like should haunt thorn, these McMurdock. They've done many a black deed, and I'll answer for it they're scared. I never knew men so scared." " Then why do thoy stay there ? Let them take themselves off, and leave the devil behind them in the cave." " Maybe he'd follow them. But how could they be leaving ? It's blown a gale from the norrard these two dayß, and their boat, aiblins they re fine sailors, would never live in the raging sea." But the wind went down, and still the McMurdochs stayed on, in spite of their terror, which seemed to be as lively as ever. So was the devil, according to the accounts they gave. He still raged up and down inside the cave, screaming fiercely, and no one dared enter it. Glencuhna was very sceptical still. " They've got something to conceal, depend upon it. They've invented this devil. 1 don't believe he exists at at all. If he did, they'd go. Anyhow, I don't mean this to continue. Locksley will be here to-morrow by the steamer, and we'll make a descent upon the camp. Keep your own counsel, Kenneth —you shall come, too." The keeper shook his head, looking rather unhappy, and muttered something about obeying any orders Glenorchna gave him ; but it was evident he did not like the job before him. Nor did the half-dozen gillies and others who accompanied the chief next morning in a large boat to the encampment. With four men at the oars and one of the county constabulary in the stern beside the the chieftain, the party was large enough to overawe the McMurdocks if they were inclined to be nasty. The ma'e gipsies—five of them—were clustered about the mouth of the cave, whether fascinated by the spot which possessed such peculiar terrors for them or to oppose entrance was not clear. There must have been something very wrong, for all looked anxious and distressed. Glenorchna, an old military officer, h\d laid his plans well. One man remained in his own boat, two others took possession of the McMurdocks' boat, and removed the oars and sails therefrom, the rest of the party advanced upon the cave. " Stand aside 1'• . shouted the chief sternly. "Take care, Glenorchna. The dens unbound. Listen to him. He'll tear you in pieces. Keep oot ! keep oot I " But the chief waved them aside, and lighting a large torch of furze dipped in petroleum, which mads most brilliant glare, rushed into the cave.

He was greeted with a strange, weird, unearthly cry. But the note he thought was wailing and plaintive rather than threatening, and holding his torch on high towards the sounds, he saw that it proceeded from some creature of semi-human form, which resolved itself into a good sized monkey. The beast was the most terrified now. With marvellous agility, climbing, jumping, swinging from rock to rock, the monkey retreated into the innermost recesses of the cave, where Glenorchna presently followed it. and found it whining, whimpering, lavish, ing almost human demonstrations of grief over the body of a dead man. It was all explained easily. The McMurdocks had killed this poor creature—the very man who five days previously had come across the hills—a wandering showman, who travelled with his monkey, carrying it in a box on his back. This box had been overlooked when the deed was done, the monkey ha I got free, had tracked to where his master's body lay in the cave, and there, with impotent but terrifying fury, had retaliated upon the wretches who had murdered him.

One of the gang eventually turned Queen's evidence, and the whole of them suffered the extreme penalty. It was never properly explained why the McMurdocks had not fled while they could ; and their clinging to the spot was supposed to be due to a belief that the devil they had raised would follow them wherever they went.—By Major Arthur Griffiths in Cassell's Saturday Journal.